Liberal leader Justin Trudeau slammed the Conservatives Tuesday for allowing the number of temporary foreign workers in Windsor to double, despite the large number of locals looking for jobs.

In the House of Commons, Trudeau referred to statistics from Citizenship and Immigration Canada that show the number of temporary foreign workers present in the Windsor region went from about 700 in 2011 to more than 1,500 in 2012, the most recent year with data available. The number of temporary foreign workers in other economically hard-hit Southwestern Ontario urban areas has also seen a rapid increase, roughly doubling from 2006 to 2012.

“In Windsor, the number of unemployed workers has risen by 40 per cent while the number of foreign workers in the city has grown by 86 per cent,” Trudeau said. “Unemployment in London has risen by 27 per cent while the number of foreign workers has increased by 87 per cent.”

Mike Moffatt, a business professor at Western University, has been studying this issue. He said he was very surprised by the large increase in temporary foreign workers in Southwestern Ontario in recent years.

“I was absolutely shocked to see the number of temporary foreign workers in the area double, or almost double since 2006,” Moffatt said. “There very well may be a logical answer, but it seems very unusual to me when we have such a weak labour market.”

The temporary foreign worker program and the seasonal agricultural worker program allow employers to hire people from other countries if they can’t find Canadians to fill positions. Once they are here, the workers are only allowed to work for the employer who hired them and have to leave the country if they quit.

The program has recently weathered a string of controversies after employees working at banks, fast food restaurants and other workplaces went public with claims they were replaced by temporary foreign workers. In response, employment minister Jason Kenney has tightened the rules regulating the program, requiring employers to pay migrant workers minimum wage and declaring fast food restaurants are no longer eligible.

Given Windsor’s high unemployment rate, the growing number of temporary foreign workers raises questions about why local employers can’t find anyone to fill positions. Moffatt called on the government to release more information about the type of work migrant workers are doing.

“If it turns out they’re being brought in and doing the jobs Canadians could do, I think that’s a problem and we need to restructure the program. But if it turns out these people are coming over here because they have some specialized type of skill in Southwestern Ontario, then I think we need to start looking at our training programs and universities,” Moffatt said.

In Windsor, the farm and greenhouse industry relies heavily on migrant workers who come to Canada through the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, administered by an organization called Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services (FARMS). Ken Forth, the president of FARMS, said there is no way the industry could find enough locals to work the jobs employers need to fill.

“We hire a lot of Canadians. We do. And we hire a lot of foreign workers. We do. But without either faction, the whole industry is gone,” he said.

Forth said there are many reasons why the industry can’t find enough Canadians willing to work these jobs, despite the region’s high unemployment rate. Some of those reasons are an aging workforce, the fact the work is seasonal and the pay cut many people who used to work in manufacturing and auto industry jobs would have to take.

“When people walk out of Chrysler and are laid off at $28 an hour, they don’t have a lot of interest in $10 or $11 an hour picking tomatoes,” Forth said. “Justin [Trudeau] can talk as he likes, but the fact is this is a seasonal job and we’re picking food for a nation where we have to be competitive. That’s the way it goes.”

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